Request language data adnominal possession

Marlou van Rijn marlou_vanrijn at HOTMAIL.COM
Mon Apr 18 15:11:35 UTC 2011


Dear typologists,

For my MA thesis project I am looking for languages that make an alienable/inalienable distinction in the expression of adnominal possession, and employ head marking for both types of possession. However, I am only interested in those languages that employ different (person) marking strategies for possessive NPs with a nominal and a pronominal possessor. This means that I am NOT looking for languages such as the Muskogean language Koasati (Kimball 1991), which makes use of the same person marker:

(Alienable) possessee, nominal possessor	(Alienable) possessee, pronominal possessor
jhociɬím  im-laykí                                               im-ifá
star        3.POSS-dung                                      3.POSS-dog
‘star’s dung’ (a meteor) (p. 433)                      ‘his/her/their dog/dogs’ (p. 433)

but languages which use different marking strategies for both types of possessors, e.g. use a Genitive, or some other invariant particle, when a nominal possessor is involved, but a person marker when a pronominal possessor is involved, or languages that employ person markers from different morphological paradigms or of a different morphological status (affix versus free element) are also relevant. Examples would be:

(Alienable) possessee, nominal possessor	(Alienable) possessee, pronominal possessor
[man(-)GEN/POSS   dog] 			                [3SG(.POSS)   dog]
[man   3SG(-)dog]				                [3SG.POSS(-)dog] (or vice versa)
[man   3SG(.POSS)   dog]			                [3SG(.POSS)-dog] (or vice versa)

In ‘pseudo’-English this would be:

[man(-)GEN/POSS   dog]			[he/his  dog]
[man   he(-)dog]				[his(-)dog] (or vice versa)
[man   he/his   dog]				[he/his-dog] (or vice versa)

Note that the difference must pertain between nominal and pronominal possessor of one type of possession only, i.e. both involve alienable possession or both involve inalienable possession.

In addition, I am looking for languages that make an alienable/inalienable distinction and obligatorily select a free pronoun plus a (person) marker in possessive NPs. Hence, I am looking for NPs with the following structure:

[1SG(.POSS)  POSS(-)book/mother]		[1SG(.POSS)  1SG(.POSS)(-)book/mother]

In ‘pseudo-English’ this would be:

[I/my 	POSS(-)book/mother]		[I/my	I/my(-)book/mother]
		
Furthermore, I am interested in finding languages that employ different marking strategies for 1st/2nd and 3rd person.

If any of you know of (a) language(s) that fit(s) one or more of these descriptions, please let me know, as I am very interested in finding such examples.

Kind regards,

Marlou van Rijn
University of Amsterdam



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